The present invention relates to a device for detecting, monitoring and/or controlling racing vehicles on a preferably multi-lane racetrack, having at least one sensor unit, which is arranged countersunk under the surface of a carriageway.
Such controlling and monitoring devices are used in particular on model racetracks, in particular those known as slot-car tracks, but may in principle also be used on real racetracks and the racing vehicles driving on them. Of course, various types of vehicle come into consideration here as racing vehicles, such as for example cars or motorcycles, but in principle other things that race, such as for example horses, sulkies or watercraft such as speedboats, may also be equipped with corresponding devices, so that the term racing vehicle should be understood in a broad sense in the context of the present application.
Racing on racetracks is usually monitored with the aid of technical means of detection and controlled by corresponding control modules, such as for example detection of the number of laps completed and/or lap time or the identification of a respective vehicle or a driver assigned to this vehicle. Apart from the monitoring measures already long known per se, such as light barriers for detecting the speed, camera monitoring for detecting the finish or the like, it has recently also already been proposed to monitor or control vehicles and the drivers controlling them as well as the position of the vehicle on the racetrack and the time or distance driven by electronic data transmission from the vehicle. For example, the documents WO 2006/042235 A2 and US 2006/0183405 A1 propose fitting on the racing vehicles so-called RFID elements, i.e. identification modules operating by radio data communication, and to store in these RFID elements a vehicle identification, a driver identification and possibly further vehicle and driver data as well as race data, which is then read by suitable RFID readers located at the racetrack, for example in such a way that each time the finishing line is passed the RFID element of a vehicle is read and the lap counter is correspondingly incremented and stored together with the vehicle and driver identifications.
In addition to the mentioned RFID readers, the cited document WO 2006/042235 A2 here proposes integrating conductor loops or light projectors into the racetrack, in order to detect vehicles driving over them.
However, such sensor systems countersunk under the surface of a carriageway cannot be integrated all that easily in the carriageway, in particular in the case of slot-car racetracks. In particular, maintenance or adjustment work that becomes necessary can only be performed with difficulty. If a sensor has to be removed, not only is removal laborious, but the exact positioning during installation that is necessary for satisfactory functioning of the sensor system is difficult to set. On the other hand, specifically in the case of slot-car tracks it must be taken into consideration that, depending on the base of the track and on how the carriageway is secured, vibrations may be introduced into the sensor system to a greater or lesser extent when it is driven over by the racing vehicles, which may adversely affect its measuring accuracy, but also its service life.